These are probably my most re-read books: comfort food literature, especially when times are tough.
And I just realized: they’re all the same story.
A group of men (well, males) go on a journey together. They struggle through great adversity. They encounter betrayal and violence and death. But throughout their travails and sorrows they mostly act with bravery and honor and sacrifice.
There are few women in these stories: but those they encounter are usually wise and beautiful and strong.
In two out of the three a great evil is finally vanquished. But in all the stories there is a melancholy feeling of loss and the inevitable passing of time: not all scars heal, no matter how worthily they were earned. Yet even in death still there is hope.
I guess I have a type…
by gwailo_joe
2 Comments
I think it’s commonly known as the “hero’s journey” theme.
It’s called the Hero’s Journey, a favorite device of authors since ancient times. And yes, it’s often a band of heroes rather than one lone hero. George Lucas followed the same pattern in *Star Wars*.
According to Wikipedia:
>Numerous literary works of popular fiction have been identified by various authors as examples of the [Hero’s Journey] monomyth template, including Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Melville’s Moby Dick, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, works by Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Somerset Maugham, J. D. Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, W. B. Yeats, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Seamus Heaney and Stephen King, Plato’s – Allegory of the Cave, Homer’s – Odyssey, Frank Baum’s – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Lewis Carroll’s – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland amongst many others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey